The Templar Legacy: A Novel (Cotton Malone Book 1) by Steve Berry

Author:Steve Berry [Berry, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Thriller, Suspense
ISBN: 9780345493774
Google: 17LWvgxJoS8C
Amazon: B000FCKPF8
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2006-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-EIGHT

SUNDAY, JUNE 25

ABBEY DES FONTAINES

5:25 AM

De Roquefort slammed the door shut behind him. The iron clanged against the metal frame with the retort of a rifle, and the lock engaged.

“Is all ready?” he asked one of the assistants.

“As specified.”

Good. Time to make his point. He strolled ahead through the subterranean corridor. He was three floors below ground level, in a part of the abbey first occupied a thousand years ago. Endless construction had transformed the rooms surrounding him into a labyrinth of forgotten chambers, now used mainly for cool storage.

He’d returned to the abbey three hours ago with Lars Nelle’s notebook and Royce Claridon. The loss of Pierres Gravées du Languedoc, the book from the auction, weighed heavy on his mind. He could only hope the notebook and Claridon would supply him with enough of the missing pieces.

And the dark woman—she was a problem.

His world was distinctly male. His experience with women minimal. They were a different breed, of that he was sure, but the female he’d confronted on the Pont St.-Bénézet seemed almost alien. She’d never shown even a hint of fear, and handled herself with the cunning of a lioness. She’d lured him straight to the bridge, knowing precisely how she planned to make her escape. Her only mistake was in losing the journal. He had to know her identity.

But first things first.

He entered a chamber topped by pine rafters that had remained unaltered since the time of Napoléon. A long table spanned the room’s center, upon which lay Royce Claridon, prone on his back, his arms and legs strapped to steel spikes.

“Monsieur Claridon, I have little time and I need much from you. Your cooperation will make everything so much simpler.”

“What do you expect me to say?” Desperation laced the words.

“Only the truth.”

“I know little.”

“Come now, let us not start with a lie.”

“I know nothing.”

He shrugged. “I heard you in the archives. You are a reservoir of information.”

“All that I said in Avignon came to me then.”

De Roquefort motioned to a brother who stood across the room. The man stepped forward and laid an open tin container on the table. With three extended fingers, the brother scooped out a sticky white glob.

De Roquefort pulled off Claridon’s shoes and socks.

Claridon raised his head to see. “What are you doing? What is that?”

“Cooking grease.”

The brother rubbed the grease onto Claridon’s bare feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Surely you know your history. When the Templars were arrested in 1307, many means were used to extract confessions. Teeth were pulled out, the empty sockets probed with metal. Wedges were driven under nails. Heat was used in a variety of imaginative ways. One technique involved greasing the feet, then exposing the oiled skin to flame. Slowly the feet would cook, the skin falling away like meat from a tenderloin. Many brothers succumbed to that agony. Those who managed to survive all confessed. Even Jacques de Molay fell victim.”

The brother finished with the grease and withdrew from the room.

“In our Chronicles, there’s a report of

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